by officious attendants, whom she at length, with some difficulty,
dismissed; and, refusing to retire to rest, she spent the night in
examining the chamber, which she found was secured, and in thoughts of
Zanoni, in whose power she felt an almost preternatural confidence.

Meanwhile the prince descended the stairs and sought the room into which
the stranger had been shown.

He found the visitor wrapped from head to foot in a long robe,
half-gown, half-mantle, such as was sometimes worn by ecclesiastics. The
face of this stranger was remarkable. So sunburnt and swarthy were his
hues, that he must, apparently, have derived his origin amongst the
races of the farthest East. His forehead was lofty, and his eyes so
penetrating yet so calm in their gaze that the prince shrank from them
as we shrink from a questioner who is drawing forth the guiltiest secret
of our hearts.

"What would you with me?" asked the prince, motioning his visitor to a
seat.

"Prince of --," said the stranger, in a voice deep and sweet, but
foreign in its accent,--"son of the most energetic and masculine race
that ever applied godlike genius to the service of Human Will, with its
winding wickedness and its stubborn grandeur; descendant of the great
Visconti in whose chronicles lies the history of Italy in her palmy
day, and in whose rise was the development of the mightiest intellect,
ripened by the most restless ambition,--I come to gaze upon the last
star in a darkening firmament. By this hour to-morrow space shall know
it not. Man, unless thy whole nature change, thy days are numbered!"